HGUniversal Century

YMS-11 Act Zaku (Kycilia's Forces)

A Zaku that finally moves like it means it, wrapped in a crest that says money and power.

MechaGrade Score

4.0/5

Act Zaku (Kycilia's Forces) · 1/144 · 2018

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2018

Runnersn/a

Check price on Amazon

Affiliate link. We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

The verdict

This is one of the best pure poseability kits at the HG price point I've put hands on.

The double jointed elbows and knees give it a range that older Zaku molds never had, and the whole thing snaps into aggressive combat poses without fighting you. It leans on a handful of stickers for the crest and warning details, but the armor itself is molded in color, not painted plastic pretending to be. For an HG built around a background Zeon variant, it punches well above its station.

Best for: UC Zeon collectors who want an Origin-line Zaku with real elbow and knee bend, not just a repaint

The full review

What it is

This is the Kycilia's Forces variant of the Act Zaku, the closing-days-of-the-war Zeon suit built under the Pezun Plan as a stopgap successor to the Zaku II. The kit gives it a proper monoeye that swings on a gear as you turn the head, a ball jointed waist, and elbows and knees that double hinge instead of the old single pin the classic Zaku II molds used. Building it, the thing that got me was how confident the frame feels for an HG. The bullpup gun and paired heat hawks click into the hands cleanly, and once it's together you can drop it into a real lunging combat stance instead of the flat stiff poses older 1/144 Zakus were stuck with.

The catch

The Kycilia's crest on the head and some of the warning markings are stickers, not molded color, so you are doing careful sticker placement on a small surface if you want the full Kycilia's Forces look. A few builders report the wrist and shoulder joints loosening up faster than they'd like after repeated posing, and holding the heat hawks or the bullpup gun steady in a dynamic pose can be a fight since the hand grip isn't the tightest. It is also, at the end of the day, a reskinned Zaku II shape, so if you already own two or three Origin Zaku variants this one is more of the same silhouette with new color and a crest.

Who it's for

Grab this if you're building out a Zeon side of the war and want a Zaku that actually articulates, or if the Kycilia's Forces crest and color scheme specifically appeals to you as a background military detail. It's also a genuinely good pick if you're newer to HG kits and want to feel what a well engineered double jointed limb does compared to the older single pin Zakus. Skip it if you already have the standard Origin Zaku II or Char's Zaku II on your shelf and don't care about the faction distinction, since the pose range and part breakdown are close enough that you'd be buying the same kit twice.

The build story

What the build is actually like, and the engineering worth knowing about.

The build itself is quick and low friction, this is still an HG so there's no inner frame to assemble, but the parts separation on the new molds is better than you'd expect. The chest armor detail is molded separately rather than painted on, and the plastic Bandai used for the black armor pieces is noticeably softer, which means cleaner nub removal without the usual stress-whitening scar on dark plastic.

The standout here is the leg and arm engineering. Double hinged knees and elbows were not standard on older Zaku II tooling, and feeling that extra bend while posing is the reason this kit gets recommended over the vanilla Origin Zaku II for people who care about dynamic display. Weapon loadout is the bullpup gun and a pair of heat hawks, which is a fair accessory set for the price band, though the grip tension holding them is the kit's weak point.

Lore & trivia

01The Act Zaku was developed under Zeon's classified Pezun Plan, a late-war program based out of an asteroid arsenal near Side 3 meant to leapfrog the aging Zaku II line.
02Because the new thrusters and fusion reactor for the Act Zaku weren't ready in time, the suit still uses Zaku II backpack and weapon components, making it a transitional design rather than a clean-sheet mobile suit.
03This Kycilia's Forces version carries a distinct head crest marking allegiance to Kycilia Zabi's faction and uses a joint drive system built around the same field motor found in Earth Federation mobile suits.